


la douleur exquise

by seunghyuk (orphan_account)



Category: Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Hanahaki AU, Hurt/Comfort, Jihoon centric, M/M, No actual character death though, for like five seconds - Freeform, lapslock, mentions of blood and character death, partially non linear because my writing style is A Mess, this is mostly just a really pointless and messy character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 02:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12289275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/seunghyuk
Summary: so truthfully – fuck fate, or whatever. he’s been doing his best to contain the fluttering in his chest, the excitement that bubbles up whenever woojin comes close, arm loosely wrapping around his shoulders; indulges it only in the rare moments when the world isn’t looking but he is, eyes lingering on woojin’s figure a little too long; a little too soft.and yet.(jihoon's love for woojin forces red rose petals past his lips. and jihoon - he doesn't quite know what to do about it.)





	la douleur exquise

**Author's Note:**

> this work and i have a complicated love/hate relationship. also; i regret writing this but i didn't want to abandon it so many words in so here you go. barely edited so please let me know if there's any glaring mistakes!
> 
> warnings: mentions of blood and character death, non-detailed description of injuries (kind of)
> 
> i recommend listening to pentagon's like this, day6' blood or any vaguely sad song on bts' her album.

the first thing jihoon does after coughing out a small handful of bright red rose petals is this:

he laughs.

really, it’s more of a scoff than anything – a short exhale cut-off midways, static expression blurring the lines between amusement and ridicule. and to clarify, it’s more of the latter, actually; a bitter yet good natured salute to the irony of the situation.

here’s how it happens:

jihoon types “how to calculate the mass of a sphere” into the search bar and ends up on a video of woojin. admittedly, it’s not just naver magic and his wandering mind and hands might’ve played a minor role in this but. who cares. what matters is that jihoon can’t quite bring himself to disable autoplay and that this might possibly be his fifth video now. yes, he stopped counting after the third one.

it happens on what he thinks should be his seventh video, simply judging by the amount of time that has passed ever since he ended up on this hellsite. he’s already gone through a weak eight seconds of eye contact with woojin (and possibly gotten distracted by an attempt to beat hyungseob which had failed somewhere around the 1:30 second mark) when youtube decides to spit out another official mnet video at him.

it’s woojin’s introduction video. surprisingly enough, jihoon realizes that he’s never actually watched the full version of it, having only caught a snippet of it way back then when donghan had insisted on _checking out the competition!_ via youtube search, in the middle of the night. jihoon vaguely remembers chucking his pillow at him in an attempt to get him to lower the volume before grudgingly getting up to retrieve it from where it had narrowly missed donghan’s head and bounced off the wall onto his bed instead. it was then, that he’d seen a glimpse of tousled brown hair out of the corner of his eye, taken a closer look to find park woojin in all of his 2009 post-emo glory, walking into the shot to the tune of some chris brown song he’d heard before but hadn’t been able to place.   

cute, he’d thought then; an offhand remark springing into life somewhere in the back of his head that he’d left suspended mid-air, with no intentions to dwell on it any further.   
then he’d wacked the pillow right in donghan’s face.

  
cute – that’s what he’s thinking right now, eyes falling on woojin’s dancing figure. he pauses the video and slumps further into the pillow he’d propped up against the wall in an attempt to soothe the ache in his neck, hands moving to angle the laptop farther away from the door just in case somebody decides to check on him and the non-existent progress he’s made on his math homework. (and maybe his other hand moves to give them a subtle push – his creased worksheets lying next to him, that is –  just until they disappear underneath his covers, only a small corner peeking out from underneath like a quiet reminder that his teacher _will_ murder him if he shows up empty-handed again, acclaimed idol or not. whatever. he’ll do it later, he’s sure.)

he unpauses the video with a firm tap of the touchpad. woojin springs back into life, body moving in sharp but soft movements, feet sliding against the wooden floorboards. his style is a little looser than he allows it to be these days jihoon notices, youthful in a way that is almost careless, even. still, it’s not any less impressive than what woojin usually delivers, drawing in jihoon’s attention; a fond smile creeping onto his features, heart beating against his ribcage just a little louder than it should.

woojin comes to a halt in the middle of the dancefloor. really, everything’s fine up until here – even despite the subtle stuttering of his heart, giddy warmth coloring his cheeks and ears a pale red. those aren’t news to jihoon – stopped being news to him the moment he closed his tired eyes in the soft 2am darkness of a long day and saw woojin’s smile blazing against the back of his eyelids, booming laughter ringing in his ears. it’s no secret that he’s got it bad for park woojin; not to him at least. he’ll gladly pride himself on that – the willingness to walk straight past denial right into acceptance. it’s not nearly as scary as it sounds, if he’s honest, hurts less than letting his feelings fester only to have the band-air ripped right off when reality comes crashing down a little harder than he’d been bracing himself for.

so truthfully – fuck fate, or whatever. he’s been doing his best to contain the fluttering in his chest, the excitement that bubbles up whenever woojin comes close, arm loosely wrapping around his shoulders; indulges it only in the rare moments when the world isn’t looking but he is, eyes lingering on woojin’s figure a little too long; a little too soft.

and yet.

it’s not until woojin pulls out a red rose from underneath his jacket that he feels a slight tickle at the back of his throat. he clears it lightly, feels the corners of his mouth move into a smile at woojin’s cute speech about the sentiment behind his choreography. yes, he thinks to his own dismay, i’ll gladly be yours woojin. he slaps himself, a funny little gesture that barely stings for a second, just to shake off the embarrassment.

then he hacks up a handful of rose petals.

haha.

  
the sensation is more strange than it is uncomfortable, silkiness coating his throat for a split second before the petals spill into his palm, barely a scattering of them. they’re wet around the edges but vibrant despite everything; a deep red the color of the rose woojin’s holding in his outstretched hand. not now, woojin, he thinks and promptly clicks the video away before setting aside the laptop in favor of examining the petals in his hand.

(it hits him a little later that night; what else they remind him of. he’s surprised he didn’t realize earlier, but as he stands there, drops of blood staining the bathroom sink it becomes so wonderfully clear to him – this right now might only be a small nosebleed, a belated reaction to the stress of the past weeks; but with the way he feels his throat constricting with each second he spends around woojin, a faint piercing sensation every time he wills down another stray petal it might just as well be something else soon; another reason to rub at the off-white ceramic of their tiles in the middle of the night soon.

he can’t say he’s thrilled.)                 

there’s footsteps coming towards the door to their shared room, light but steady. it’s woojin, jihoon knows – not because he’s memorized the pattern of steps that approach the room on the daily; even if he knows that guanlin wears socks in the house, that jaehwan carries a light spring in his step; but because there’s no one else it could be. most of the others are out and jinyoung is tied to the couch, watching a movie, half trapped under daehwi’s leg. minhyun, if the faint clattering of pots from down the hall is anything to go by, must be busy in the kitchen.

jihoon shoves the petals into the pocket of his sweatpants and pushes back his covers to reveal his discarded math homework, just before the door swings open. woojin peeks his head into the room, droplets of water dripping from his still wet hair. jihoon feels his heartbeat speed up, a vague tightness building in his neck that he swallows away stubbornly.

“how’s it going?” woojin asks and takes a few steps into the room. for a second, jihoon thinks he’s going to come climbing up onto his bed to poke fun at his inability to progress on his math homework but he makes a beeline for his own instead, letting himself drop onto the covers lazily.

jihoon breathes out a sigh of relief that sends the petals in his throat fluttering.

“great,” he chokes out and quickly takes ahold of his worksheets, pushing shut the laptop with his other hand. woojin looks up at him, a lazy smirk spreading across his features. jihoon coughs lightly.

“don’t lie, i know you suck at math,” woojin says and grins at him. “like me,” he tacks on quietly, mouth shifting into a cute little pout.

jihoon promptly jumps off the bed. he lands on both his feet but stumbles forwards anyway, just managing to grab onto the bedpost. woojin stands up in a rush, arms outstretched to steady him but jihoon shakes his head frantically.

“i’m fine,” he hisses quietly and makes his way to the door, the pain jolting up his leg from the harsh impact faint against the weight of the petals sitting in his pocket.

“where are you going?” woojin questions, confusion coloring his voice. he’s right behind him, jihoon realizes, hand hovering over his shoulder as if to hold him back.

“bathroom,” he answers curtly.

then he shuts the door in woojin’s face.

 

* * *

 

  
the gravity of the situation never really hits him.

for two weeks he goes without another incident, petals lodged deep in his throat, unmoving. it’s hard work – both, placating the quiet urge to force them out every single time woojin so much as looks at him for a little too long, worry clear in his eyes, and making sure that he never comes close enough to trigger anything stronger than a heavy tightness in his throat, sometimes accompanied by a sharp stinging sensation that fades when he washes it away with another gulp of water – but he puts up with it, for lack of anything better to do. and really; the more he walks away from watching eyes, forces himself to look away before the wave of nausea hits him, the more it grows on him – quite literally, if one might say so, with the way he knows the roots are wrapping around his heart, maybe. but. no. he’s learning to accept it, that’s all. maybe he’ll be fine after all.

what he knows is this: he has no regrets. he’s too tired to hold grudges anyway, against himself especially. against the world. against woojin. he could never. and loving woojin; being in love with him, really, because what else is he supposed to call it at this point – for all the troubles it has brought him, he can’t find it in him to be angry about it. even if it kills him. haha.

if there’s anything he might regret, it’s the way he’d snapped at woojin that day; a bad show of keeping his belated shock in rein. it hadn’t been much of a reaction really, just a rushed excuse to get away from the suffocating weight of having woojin so close when he’d been close to suffocation already. but yes, maybe he’d been a little harsh. he shouldn’t have slammed that door in his face.

and woojin, he knows – despite being used to their constant discordance, their peculiar rhythm of falling in out and of place every few days – he’s taken it to heart, has been keeping his calculated distance, always straying from jihoon by a few steps more than necessary; just enough to evade him without alerting the other members. and, actually. now that he thinks about it – maybe this shouldn’t be much of a regret after all. a blessing in disguise, perhaps, if anything.

what he means is: it’s hard work, making sure that woojin never comes close enough to trigger anything stronger than a heavy tightness in his throat; but, he supposes, with the way woojin has been avoiding him in the subtlest way he knows how to, there’s only so much left for jihoon to do, really. and in the end, he guesses, what it boils down to is really just calling dibs on the first shower of the night just so he makes it to bed before night breaks, fast asleep by the time woojin enters the room.

not that it works.

(the quick pace of the day does a good enough job at keeping his thoughts at bay – but at night, when the quiet chatter of the dorm finally dies down to make room for the static silence of darkness; the occasional car passing by their building, jihoon becomes defenseless. there’s only so much tossing and turning he can do without accidentally waking up any of his roommates, only so often he can sneak out of the room to get himself something to drink and bang his head against the fridge door a couple of times before someone walks in on him, half empty cup of strawberry milk in his trembling hands, forehead and eyes painted a soft red.

and frankly – he’s tired. it’s been days since he last got a proper night of sleep and the short rides in the car he spends with his head pressed against the window, in the seat farthest away from woojin are barely enough to make up for the hours lost. besides, these days he can’t afford to drown out the loud clutter of voices anyway; not when they happen to be just that little bit louder than the ringing in his head, the woojin, woojin, woojin on infinite loop; like a broken record. woojin, woojin, please don’t look at me woojin. i like you so much, woojin. why won’t you love me back, woojin.

god.

he needs to get a grip on himself.)

 

* * *

 

  
thursday night sees jihoon choking out a wave of bloodied rose petals in the company bathroom. when jisung finally pushes open the door, jihoon is sitting on the ground, head resting against the underside of the sink. the floor is blank, the petals stuffed deep into the bin on the other side of the room.

“hyung!” jihoon exclaims weakly in an attempt to diffuse the situation. he rises to his feet shakily, hands gripping onto the rim of the sink. jisung surges forward to engulf jihoon in a hug, hand pushing his head into his chest.

“i’m fine, hyung,” jihoon insists, voice muffled against the fabric of jisung’s yellow shirt. it’s weak he knows – both his half-hearted insistence and his delicate grip around jisung’s wrist; his vague attempt to free himself from the elder’s arms. jisung only shakes his head and pulls him in closer.

“jihoonie,” he sighs into his hair, “what do we do with you, jihoonie.”

  
jihoon wishes he knew.

  
it goes something like this:

dance practices, for the most part, are okay. even if the minimal height difference between woojin and him pushes them together a little too close for jihoon’s liking; has him gasping for air after each run-through as he wills down another bout of petals blocking his throat – it’s fine. so long as jihoon keeps his eyes locked on his reflection in the mirror; pours himself into the choreography like he’s never quite felt the need to before.

how funny, he huffs to himself as he lies sprawled out on the floor, eyes shut against the artificial brightness of their studio lightning – that he’s running on empty these days, yet this might just very well be the best he’s ever been. his moves are sharp, meeting the beat just right; drenched in energy he shouldn’t have. doesn’t have. even woojin has noticed, he’s aware – has been hovering around him all day, careful praises laid out on his tongue that he swallows back down every time jihoon’s eyes so much as meet his for more than a split second. jihoon knows because it’s a mirror reaction; a subtle rise and fall of his adam’s apple that matches his own reflex to keep down the petals before they claw themselves up his throat. and maybe, woojin has always been a little too easy to read; eyes widened just a little bit, hands fidgeting with the hem of his shirt – hesitation settling itself into every movement, despite his firm steps that stop just short of jihoon.

jihoon wishes he didn’t know so well. but; alas.

it doesn’t come as a surprise then, that when loud music starts blasting from the speakers halfway through their break and jihoon forces open his eyes to find woojin in the middle of the practice room, body moving to the beat effortlessly; he can’t find it in him to look away. part of him wants to play it off as a show of respect – everyone else has gathered at the sides to watch woojin with fond awe, yelling exaggerated cheers despite the fatigue weighing down their voices – but really, it’s weakness; he knows. he’s weak for woojin. that’s all.

  
it’s when the pace of the song picks up and woojin follows suit, face twisting into an expression of pure confidence – a small smirk tugging at his lips as he continues to twist his body in ways jihoon can only dream of, tongue peeking out just past where his snaggletooth sits – that he feels a sharp sensation at the base of his throat. it’s vaguely familiar in that the realization hits him in an instant; the clear knowledge that this is something beyond the force of dainty petals fighting to spill out of his mouth; but the severity of the situation still takes him aback – the almost knifelike sensation, like a stab to his throat; the sudden tightness that has him forcing air into his lungs in quick breaths, one hand around his neck as if to ease the pressure.

somewhere beyond the thrumming of his heartbeat in his ears, somebody calls his name.

help, jihoon thinks.

and then: i need to leave.

he shakes his head vehemently in a panicked attempt to signal that he’s alright. frankly, he isn’t sure whether he’s looking in the right direction, face tilted towards the floor in an attempt to hide the tears welling up in his eyes but; he figures, he just needs them to stay away. he doesn’t even know who called his name in the first place, voice distorted by the blood rushing through his ears, the throbbing sensation climbing up his throat to beat against the sides of his head.

“jihoon-ah, are you alright?”

yellow, jihoon thinks. he blinks – once, twice, over and over and over again but the tears won’t stop clouding his view, welling up in his eyes every time he dares to open them again. and – the light. it’s so, so bright, the other members a formless blur of blacks and greys in the distance but; yellow. jisung is wearing yellow, right?

“jihoon,” jisung calls. his voice is soft; a faint ringing in his ears amidst the blotchy blackness occupying his mind, the flashes of pain in bright red against the back of his eyelids. where’s the urgency? jihoon wonders despite his frenzied state of mind, a stray thought that settles itself amongst the disarray – jisung’s voice is so gentle; slow like the yellow crowding into his view, but here jihoon is; dying, maybe.

“jihoon!”

he feels a harsh tug at his shoulder; a loud voice crashing against his eardrums.

ah, jihoon thinks. there it is.

“are you okay?!”

jihoon clasps his hand over his mouth, a sudden surge of nausea hitting him. he shakes his head frantically, pushing jisung’s hand off his shoulder before rising to his feet shakily.

then he makes a run for the door.

 

here’s the funny thing:

love and envy, jihoon believes, go hand in hand. and for each time his heart skips a beat at the thought of woojin, it grows a little heavier with contempt.

it’s a delicate balance, he knows – with every day he toes the fine line between adoration and jealousy, he finds that, really, all the love in the world only weighs so much against the quiet urge to be just that little bit better, the pressing knowledge that this might just very well be the best he’s ever been; moves sharp, meeting beat just right – but woojin is better. will always be better, of course. there’s no malice behind these thoughts, he believes; just enough control, too, that it never goes beyond a drive to project everything into a competition that only he is looking to win.

but.

jihoon loves woojin. there’s no doubt about it; red petals spilling onto white tiles in waves, the contrast so striking jihoon has to force himself to blink away the creeping thought that all of this might just be a fucked up dream. and – jihoon loves woojin, he really does; but when he picks up the petals with shaking hands to dump them into the bin before anyone can walk in on him and the pad of his fingers come away stained a deep red, he can’t help but to think that maybe; he must hate him too. just a little bit. it’s an ugly emotion – a dirty green that spans across his heart and crawls up his throat, thorns pushing into his skin to leave open wounds. but – and he hates this more, he thinks – what blooms at the very top is a beautiful rose; bright red, despite everything. more alive than he’s felt in a while, too.

love and envy, jihoon supposes, do come hand in hand after all. and for each time his heart skips a beat at the thought of woojin, it dies a little bit more.  
  
  
jisung comes barging in a split second later. i’m fine, jihoon tells himself. i’m fine, he speaks into the joyful yellow of jisung’s shirt. jisung doesn’t believe it, he’s aware. frankly, he doesn’t either.

(and if there’s a stray petal clinging to his shirt that he misses in his hurry to scrub his fingers clean; hands dripping with water when he finally comes to settle on the bathroom floor, head heavy against the underside of the sink – and if it’s the first thing jisung’s eyes fall on, a tiny speck of red against crinkled white that confirms the creeping suspicion he’s been harboring for a few days now, heart struck with the sinking realization that jihoon is withering away and he doesn’t know what to do about it; then.

jihoon knows.)

 

* * *

 

  
the hyungs won’t stop smothering him with affection after that. seongwoo shares gentle smiles with him whenever they’re in close proximity of each other, eyes crinkling into crescent moons that nudge a corresponding smile onto jihoon’s face. daniel grabs him by the wrist in passing to pull him closer, hand coming up to ruffle his hair for no reason at all – except his searching eyes that flit over jihoon’s face to rest on the shadows bleeding from his features give him away all too easy. jisung, too.  

he must’ve told them, jihoon realizes in the midst of being uncomfortably sandwiched inbetween both daniel and seongwoo. it’s fair enough, he figures – he imagines; jisung, accidentally blurting out that _jihoon’s in love with woojin and i think it’s killing him_ into the darkness of their shared room because the weight of knowing had become much, only to be met with heavy silence; and his heart aches a little at the thought of jisung carrying his burden all by himself. he couldn’t find it in him to be angry about it. besides, he’s lucky enough that jisung hadn’t insisted on asking questions that night, even if he’d refused to let jihoon go, clinging onto him like he’d been scared for his life instead. jihoon had been. that much he’ll admit.

(sometimes he wishes jisung had been a little more insistent; taken him by his shoulders and shaken some sense into him. forced him to get rid of it – whatever the cost. and in the end, how much is his love for woojin worth anyway? if woojin can’t even see it. if it’ll end up killing him. jihoon isn’t sure.)

still. for all the quiet comfort he finds in their odd ways of looking out for him, there’s only so much of it he can take; the stiff hesitation in their movements too stark of a reminder of woojin for him to bear, akin to the words at the tip of their tongues urging him to let go that he knows they won’t spit out, because in the end, daniel and seongwoo are just like –

woojin, he thinks.

he coughs, petals rustling in his throat. daniel and seongwoo turn their heads, visibly alarmed. sungwoon, he notices, has stopped mid movement, fingers hovering over his phone. if any of the others notice the sudden tension that has crashed over the room, then they don’t say anything about it.

 

the balcony, jihoon and woojin find, is the best hideout in the entire dorm. it’s so beautifully simple –  sneak out when no one is lurking around the living room, pull the curtain closed and shut the door. hope that this time, too, nobody is smart enough to think outside the box. quite literally.

this is how woojin and jihoon run away on friday nights at the dorm. jihoon gives up on his tedious math worksheets first; but it’s woojin, always, who caves in and pushes his book aside in favor of stretching his hand out to jihoon – a silent invitation to take a break, to get out for a minute. clear their heads.

(really; it’s not much of a break when their conscience urges them to grab a couple of half done worksheets in passing to compare their results, maybe a study guide that neither of them have bothered to read despite the rapidly approaching date of their university entrance exams but – both of them know that by the time the night sky finally opens up to them, sprinkled with a faint dusting of stars, their worksheets will have been long forgotten on the small coffee table, study guide converted into a makeshift paperweight. that’s the way it goes on their friday nights.

jihoon wouldn’t have it any other way.)

  
today, the chair next to jihoon remains empty.

it’s a strange feeling – tearing himself away from the sight of woojin wrapped in blankets on his bed, study guide flanking one side, a scattering of papers spread out on the other. he looks focused, brows furrowed in concentration as his hands move across his notebook quickly, eyes flitting over to the opened study guide every few seconds. jihoon doesn’t think he’s ever seen him studying that diligently in his presence. maybe he’s better off without jihoon on friday nights, after all.

all the more of a reason for jihoon to get out. he’s aware that the stack of work he’s carelessly stashed away under their bunk bed is growing with each week he spends out of school, but the tugging urge to clear his head pulls him towards the balcony, despite the cold that engulfs his empty hand. besides, he knows that if he were to stay inside any longer, either daniel or seongwoo would sense his growing discomfort and pester him with silent attempts at lifting his spirits – put on a movie that all of them have watched twice already, maybe; try their hand at helping him with his math worksheets despite their collective inability to explain things, while jisung and sungwoon watch from their respective couches, fond exasperation washing over the concern rooted into their smiles. who knows. maybe he could guilt minhyun into baking a cake for him.

and – jihoon appreciates the sentiment, really, but; enough is enough. (besides, woojin is the only one who’s ever successfully broken down math for him, despite his own inability to wrap his mind around it completely. maybe he’s got it down now, that jihoon isn’t there to distract him anymore. jihoon wouldn’t know.)  


frankly, the balcony might not have been the best choice. the gaping vacancy that occupies the chair just right of him tugs at his attention all night, even stronger of a presence after jihoon’s half-hearted attempt to push it away from him. he tries his best at letting his view fall onto the distant lights grazing the night sky instead, urging his mind to drift away into space where there’s no woojin and no rose petals crawling up his neck. no drops of blood staining his palm and no worried eyes following him down the hall whenever he exits the bathroom, hands shaking slightly. but; really – realizing that the balcony is only so much his as it is woojin’s too, the quiet comfort of the summer breeze and the blinking of lights somewhere beyond the rooftops stretching out in front of him only so comforting without the low murmur of woojin’s voice – it’s only a small step away from slipping into dangerous thoughts, a short leap past the railing just in front of him into free fall.

and jihoon lets it happen.

  
in his muted memories of a friday night past, woojin is sitting in the chair next to him, head turned towards the open skies above them. the warm summer breeze carries his low voice over to where jihoon is slumped into his own chair, a soft smile grazing his face. it’s comforting enough – the slight rumble of woojin’s voice that drifts into his ears and resonates within his heart; but jihoon isn’t paying attention, of course. what he’s thinking instead is this:

what a pretty sight. the early night sky is a matte blue, dotted with bursts of white that fade against the fluorescent yellow of the bustling city. in the darkened windows of the building in front of them, he spots the fuzzy reflection of the moon that sits firmly above their heads.

how nice, he thinks, that the moon and the stars have come out to play tonight. he takes his eyes off the faint lights of a plane passing by to find that woojin’s are still transfixed on the dark blue of the sky. his voice has faded, leaving behind an easy silence instead.

and then he thinks:

how nice, that the moon and the stars have come out to play tonight; in woojin’s eyes. in the darkness of the night they’re a deep black, specks of white dancing within them – and if jihoon looks closely enough, he might even see himself reflected in them; cheeks flushed a saccharine red, his heart out on his sleeve.

if woojin turns around now, he’ll say it, he thinks.

(he must say it, he thinks.)

 

jihoon makes it to the bathroom just before the first petals slip past his lips. the door remains unlocked as always – an act of careless hurry; a subconscious desire to share his burden, perhaps. whatever it may have been this time; it allows jaehwan to slip into the bathroom just after him, eyes wide in panic. he’s blurry in the cloudy mirror, but jihoon recognizes it anyway – the moment the realization registers beyond the fleeting impression that the shock leaves, settling into his heart to leave a lasting impression, a pressing voice of worry. jihoon knows how it works. except this time, there’s no warmth engulfing him, no half-hearted lies crashing against the soft fabric of a shirt. instead, there’s a rapid succession of footsteps approaching the door, a head of faded brown hair coming into sight just behind jaehwan.

“jihoon-ah! what happe–“

jaehwan shuts the door in his face.

 

* * *

 

  
(he doesn’t.)

 

* * *

 

  
this time, it’s woojin who finds him first.

in a moment of  weakness that catches him off-guard, he coughs out a large bout of petals, right onto the practice room floor. it’s another violent fit – the kind that has him struggling for air as he feels the throats digging deeper into his throat with each cough that forces itself past his lips to reveal another handful of petals, blood tinting the edges a darker red. he knows, somewhere beyond the alarms ringing in his head, the pain crashing through his body; that he has to get out of here. that this time he won’t be lucky enough to see that it’s jisung and his yellow shirt and soft words.

but –

he’s so, so tired, he thinks.

this is how woojin finds him; curled up on the floor, body shaking with quiet sobs. the floor around him is red, a stubborn petal still clinging to his lips. woojin’s steps are hurried, his voice urgent when his arms come to engulf him in the familiar warmth of days past. jihoon doesn’t have it in him to push him away.

“jihoon-ah,” woojin repeats, words slipping past his hair to settle themselves  deep amongst the loud static occupying his mind. jihoon shakes his head vehemently and pushes his face deeper into the crook of woojin’s neck instead, tears dripping down to stain the collar of his black shirt. he’s still shaking; sobs wracking his body despite the subsiding pain, woojin’s arms tightening his grip around him. his hand that comes up to rake through his hair, fingers pressing into his scalp gently. and when woojin speaks up this time, his voice is gentle. pleading.

“jihoon-ah,” he says softly.

it’s me, right.

part of jihoon wants to deny it. keep pushing the limits of his heart; find out how much more air he’ll have to push out of his lungs to drive his half-hearted lies in a weak attempt to protect woojin from the heavy guilt. it’s too late, anyway, he’s aware. besides, here, in woojin’s arms, he’s so, so tired. and maybe, he thinks, he doesn’t want to fight anymore.

 

he doesn’t want to fight it anymore.

 

* * *

  
+1

jisung drives him to the hospital in the dead of the night. the trip is silent, the heavy weight of a decision made tugging harshly at jihoon’s heart. it’s fine, jihoon mutters under his breath. it’s better this way. if jisung can hear him, then he doesn’t anything about it.

woojin corners him in the living room when they come back. it’s still dark outside; the moon flickering silently behind the drawn curtain.

“ji–“ he starts, voice quiet so as not to shake the peaceful silence of the dorm, but jihoon cuts him off.

“it’s okay,” he says. he smiles at him – a wide smile that reveals his teeth, eyes crinkling into crescent moons. woojin stares, dumbfounded, before he finally releases his firm grip around jihoon’s hand to take a step back.

“oh,” woojin says.

jihoon continues smiling at him.

  
(it’s a strange feeling – he knows, his head should be clouded with thoughts of woojin now; woojin, woojin, i like you so much, woojin, why won’t you love me, woojin, i’m sorry, woojin on infinite loop. but when jihoon allows himself to listen, it’s silent; an empty static rising to fill the void instead.

he remembers; earlier tonight when he’d climbed down his bed to shake jisung awake and his stubborn feet had come to a halt in front of woojin’s. “goodbye,” he’d let his heart echo into the quiet of the room, never to see the light of day. it’s a heartbreaking thought; he’s aware –  but as he stands there, in the darkness of the living room, with woojin looking right at him, he feels nothing but a faint tug, the weak rattling of days past in his big and empty heart.

 

that’s all.)

 

   


 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> saskia i did it are you proud of me (i'm not).
> 
> my paragraphs are always crazy long so please let me know if i should space them out more!


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